1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical recording medium and a reproducing apparatus and method, and more particularly, to a recording medium storing information regarding data in the current sector as data in a linking loss area, and an apparatus and method linking data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Since basic recording units of a digital versatile disc-rewritable (DVD-RW) are positioned one after another in a continuous series, in contrast to those of a DVD-Random Access Memory (DVD-RAM) which are divided by physical identifier (PID) areas or buffer fields (extra areas allocated to correspond to a requirement for controlling a spindle motor accurately), it is required that a recording-start point of each basic recording unit in a DVD-RW is precisely located. Here, the basic recording unit of the DVD-RAM may be a sector and the basic recording unit of the DVD-RW may be an error correction code (ECC) block.
Since the basic recording units of the DVD-R and the DVD-RW, which have the same physical formats, are positioned in a continuous series as described above, when data transmission or recording is momentarily discontinued or subsequently recommenced, the DVD-R and the DVD-RW use a linking scheme in which an extra area of a next recording-start point is allocated. The sizes of a linking area which is applied to the linking scheme are 0 kilo bytes (KB), 2 KB, and 32 KB.
FIGS. 1A through 1C are schematic diagrams showing conventional data linking methods. FIG. 1A shows the data structure of a 2 KB linking method, FIG. 1B shows the data structure of a 32 KB linking method, and FIG. 1C shows the data structure of a 0 KB linking method. In the conventional linking methods as shown, if the data type in sector information is ‘1b’, this indicates that the next sector is a linking loss area. The linking loss area has no effective data and only stores dummy data, that is, ‘00h’. Therefore, main data recorded in a subsequent area is replaced with ‘00h’ regardless of reproducing data, and therefore correction of an ECC block can be improved.
FIG. 1A shows a data structure in which the size of a linking loss area is 2 KB, and FIG. 1B shows a data structure in which the size of a linking loss area is 32 KB. If user data does not fill an entire first ECC block, padding data is recorded in the remaining part of the first ECC block. If the data type of the last sector of the first ECC block is ‘1b’, the first sector (2 KB) of the second ECC block or an entire second ECC block (16 sectors=32 KB) becomes a linking loss area according to a linking type and padding data is recorded in the linking loss area.
FIG. 1C shows a data structure, in which 0 KB linking is performed after performing 32 KB linking. That is, FIG. 1C shows 0 KB link recording in the second ECC block (the 32 KB linking loss area) of FIG. 1B, and user data is recorded from the first sector of the second ECC block in which 0 KB linking is performed. However, if the data type is ‘1b’ in the last recording sector of the first ECC block of FIG. 1C, the next sector, that is, the first sector of the second ECC block, may be taken for a linking loss area and user data can be replaced with ‘00h’. Therefore, an error may occur in this sector, and as a result an ECC error occurs in the entire second ECC block and data in the second ECC block cannot be reproduced.